The Lost Sister (22 page)

Or killed.

“I panicked. I mean, I thought maybe if we came out here, I don't know, we could figure out something…It was stupid, I know. But who else was going to protect her from that bastard?”

Susan said. “The police.”

Deborah laughed. No humour. Hard and cynical. “Don't take this personally, but –” She stopped talking, lifted her head.

The sound of an engine outside.

She looked at me, “You said no one else –”

“They don't.”

The engine cut off.

I looked at Susan. She shook her head. Not her doing.

The sound of a car door slamming shut.

I knew who it was out there.

Looking at Deborah, I could see she knew it, too.

Deborah pushed past us, into the front room. Hustled Mary back out. Looked at me and said, “Keep her safe.”

I nodded.

Susan looked at Deborah, said, “He knew about Mary, didn't he? Figured out what you were doing?”

Deborah nodded. “That's why I had to protect her. He would have killed her. To teach me a lesson.”

Mary remained silent throughout all of this, sticking it out in the front room, watching the TV snow and insulating herself from everything that was happening.

The big question: why did Mary trust Deborah Brown so implicitly? This woman who claimed to be her mother. Who hadn't seen Mary since she was a baby.

The girl everyone had talked about when I started making enquiries had been smart and sensitive and popular. But the biggest clue probably came from Jennifer Furst:

The last few years, it's like she's been looking for herself. It's something I can't help her with. I don't know if anyone can.

I think she had known instinctively that the woman who raised her was not a blood relative.

Did she know the truth when she met this Deborah? Walking into art class for the first time, did she get hit with some bolt of lightning? Did she realise that somehow this woman could help her find out who she was?

What made her trust Deborah enough to simply vanish with her?

There had been no coercion. No forcing the issue.

Maybe that's how it is with family.

An instinctive trust borne through the blood.

Some families, perhaps.

Others have to work at it.

I didn't have the answers. Maybe never would. Sometimes, to get at the heart of someone's story, you have to be so much inside their head that you can understand the incommunicable motivations that drive them. So many decisions we make are inarticulate, leaving us isolated and alone in our actions and choices.

Deborah and Mary were in the kitchen. They'd locked the back door.

Susan and I stood near the front door.

I heard the sound of heavy footsteps crunching on frost outside.

Susan looked at me.

The door rattled. Then someone started hammering with their fists. Howling. A strange, heightened sound; barely human.

The cry of a predator.

Or a madman.

Susan turned back and said to Deborah. “You've got a phone?”

“No.”

There had been no lines leading to the house.

“Christ! I can't get reception here. You've got to have stayed in touch with your sister, someh –”

“A box about two miles away. Main street of a wee hamlet. I walked down there once every day, called my sister. Seemed safer than –”

“Open the fucking door!”

Wickes. His voice guttural, shredding his vocal chords with anger.

Susan looked to me again, took a deep breath and then turned to the door. “This is Detective Constable Bright of Tayside Constabulary,” she said, her voice strong and assured.

Aye, you don't mess with Detective Susan.

“I am asking you to step away from the door, get back in your car and drive away.”

“Fucking bitch!”

“I'm giving you one warning –”

He didn't want to listen to her. “You in there, McNee? Did the cunt give you the sob story about how badly I treated her? She needed protecting, you know. From the world. Herself. You understand? How people need saving? From themselves as much as anyone. You know we're alike, McNee. Both of us. We understand people. What they need. We step up to help them when no one else will.”

I didn't say anything.

My muscles contracted. My fists closed. Blood beat around in my skull.

I closed my eyes. Felt that pressure inside my head. Same as when I'd woken after cracking my head on the concrete.

My legs felt unbalanced.

I could have toppled over.

All I heard was his voice. Echoing around, bouncing off the bones of my skull. “The thing is, you know it, we're easily led, McNee. You and me. So fuckin' desperate to help people, they take advantage. I know what she's told you. The things she said. The fuckin' lies. Come on, pal, who the fuck do you believe? We're brothers in arms.” He hammered on the door again. The wood was shaking, buckling. Could he break through? Man his size, I wasn't sure.

“The cunt's a fuckin' liar!”

Susan turned back to look at me.

I stepped forward.

She said, “The thing about going to CID, it's all head-work. The thinking copper's game. Been a while since I'd had to sort out a brawl.” She smiled.

“Like riding a bike,” I said.

The banging stopped.

Susan reached out, touched my forearm.

A small gesture. And like everything else in life, it was fleeting.

Susan said, her voice unnaturally loud in the sudden silence, “Think he's given up?”

“You?”

“Aye, right.”

Something started smacking on the door. A different kind of sound. Not fists and feet.

The wood splintered.

I remembered. Outside. The axe. Rusty and unused, but a weapon all the same.

The wood panels splintered in.

“Here's fuckin' Johnny!” A howl. A roar. No: a war cry.

Susan said, “This is your last chance, Mr Wickes –”

Like anything we said could have made a difference.

The door crashed in.

He was bigger than I remembered; maybe the shadows or my imagination. The adrenaline.

His eyes were wild, and those hands could have crushed someone's skull.

To Susan: “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

Susan said, “Put down the axe.” Her tone even and measured. I remembered her talking about attending the crisis negotiation skills workshop a few months back. Hoped they taught more than hot air.

Wickes stepped forward. Moving fast, swinging round with the axe. In the narrow corridor there was nowhere for Susan to move.

I couldn't react fast enough.

Again. Something in this man made me react in a primal fashion; the prey's reaction to the presence of a predator.

The blade arced in a blur.

Susan appeared to move before it struck her. Her body jerking, her head snapping back and her arms flailing.

Took me a moment to realise Wickes had managed to strike her with the butt of the axe. The handle. Right in the face.

But it wasn't the business end.

Susan crumpled fast. I ran forward. Not thinking, just wanting to grab the fucker's throat, squeeze the life out of him.

The world blurred around the edges. That sound of the ocean in my head grew even louder, the bass line of my pulse sounding just below that constant roar. Made me feel lighter than air; I could fucking fly.

The axe swung.

I ducked, thinking I was too slow, marvelling it never hit me, heard the head smash into the wall.

I came up underneath, hoped to fuck it was stuck.

And…

He doesn't waste a moment. Lets go of the axe, brings both hands round on either side of my head and slams them together.

I couldn't move.

Paralysed?

The word echoed in my brain. Took on its own weight, forced my head back down onto the uncarpeted floorboards.

He'd cracked the base of my skull with those sledgehammer hands, caught me beneath the ear.

There are tiny bones in the ear that help with balance and co-ordination. What happens if they get broken?

My body was heavy, sluggish. A burden.

My neck screamed in protest as I turned to see where he'd gone.

How long had I been lying there?

All I could think was:
I've failed. Again
.

The over-arching pattern of my life.

Who was I kidding thinking anything had changed over the last year? Was I somehow a better person because I could pretend to be at peace with what had happened to Elaine? Because I no longer spent my time trying to figure just how it was my fault that someone I loved had died?

His footsteps echoed back along the floor. His voice – dulled and unclear through the cotton wool that had clogged my brain – roared threats like some animal closing in for the kill.

I needed to move.

I closed my eyes, concentrated, rolled over, made it onto my stomach. Let out a cry from the effort and stayed still for a few seconds to regain my strength. Enough at least to raise my head.

I could see back into the kitchen. Mary was slumped against the units, her body loose, her head lolling to one side. Blood dripping from her nose.

Dead?

Oh Jesus, after all this, dead?

I flexed my hands, pressed down and tried to lift myself off the floor.

A couple of inches. My muscles trembling.

I collapsed again.

Vomited.

The bile burned my throat and the back of my nose. Threatening to choke me. Talk about undignified. But no one dies like a hero. Not in real life.

My skull was vibrating. My vision was blurred. My muscles ached, unwilling to work for me.

A punch to the head.

After everything that had happened, I could die because some prick gave me a sucker punch to the head?

My eyes were blazing. On fucking fire.

I looked at Mary.

Her right hand twitched.

She was alive.

She was alive
.

I lifted my head. Blinked out the blur.

Fuck this.

I wasn't going out. I wasn't giving up.

I swallowed hard. My ears popped.

The sounds of the outside world rushed into my skull. Tried to knock me down again.

“This is on your fucking head. Do you understand? All of this is your fault!” Wickes. Not talking to me. I guessed he was talking to Deborah. Out of sight behind the kitchen doorway. Punctuating every word with a dull thump. Sounded like he was hammering a head of lettuce.

My stomach churned.

Fuck this self pitying crap.

I reached out, grabbed the wall. Hauled myself to my feet.

Didn't look behind me. Told myself that Susan was fine. She'd rip me a new arsehole if I attended to her first.

Aye, protect the innocent first and foremost.

My left leg was useless. The old wound playing up. As though the muscles had snapped. I imagined them like pressured strings on a guitar, tensed to breaking point.

I roared.

Struggled.

Hands on the walls to steady myself.

My eyes on Mary.

That one hand clenching. Eyes flickering. As though she wanted to wake up, couldn't quite figure it out.

I pushed the walls for momentum.

The rhythmic thumping from the kitchen pulled me along.

Through the door, I stopped, one hand on the wall, barely able to keep upright when I saw the source of the noise.

Wickes had a grip on Deborah's hair. Her body was limp, legs bent at the knees, spine curved. Her arms flailed, useless, and for a moment I might have convinced myself that the big bastard had a grip on some kind of rubber doll.

Smashing her face against the worktop.

The veins popped out on his neck. His skin flushed red, his eyes bulged.

His movements were brutal yet mechanical. I couldn't say for sure if he even knew what he was doing.

One last thump and he stopped.

Let go. Looked up at me.

Loosened that grip.

Deborah dropped.

No resistance.

Her head smacked against the worktop, bounced off the floor once and then she was completely still.

Blood pooled.

“Think she gets it,” he said. “She understands.”

He was trembling.

Remorse?

Was this fucking monster even capable of such a thing?

He said, “I loved her, you know. Believe it, McNee. I loved her.”

“You killed her.”

He said nothing.

“You killed her.” The repetition no longer for his benefit. I felt empty, as though something had been stolen from me. My voice threatened to crack. I swallowed, turned my full attention onto him. “Because she loved her daughter? Because she didn't want to be yours alone?”

My legs were shaking. I could feel the world spinning on its axis.

How long could I stand?

If he turned on me, could I fight back?

“You didn't love her, you fuck. You wanted to possess her. If she couldn't be yours, she couldn't be anyone's, right? That's why you killed the dog.”

Wickes said, “Natural fucking causes,” in this low and uncertain voice. A child who knew he was going to be caught in a lie.

“You really believe that?” My leg was still on fire, but the pain had become dull and distant.

He didn't say anything. Looked down at the body on the floor.

The inside of my head was roaring.

“It didn't have to be like this,” he said. “It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

I said, “You were supposed to protect her.”

He nodded. Took deep breaths.

Looked ready to collapse himself.

“It's over, then,” I said. “All of this. Done with.”

He got down on his knees, reached out towards Deborah, touched the back of her head with the tips of his fingers. Caressed her hair, matted with blood.

He started crying like he didn't know how this had happened. Was at a loss to explain any of it.